Reinstallation of Exchange on SBS 4.5

[Michael]

Greetings,

Last Thursday the hard drive with our exchange server failed. (We have three HD on this server, the second helf the Exchange server).

I cannot uninstall the Exchange Server in order to reinstall it.

(I dont have a back-up)

We have Small Business Server 4.5, NT 4 SP 6a, Exchange Server 5.5 (part of SBS 4.5).

We have only one physical server at this time, and use a dial up connection.


If I could reinstall Exchanege I think that would resolve most of my problems.

I am sorry for presenting such a newbie question.

I have done some search of the KB, but could not find anything related to being unable to reinstall the Exchange Server.

Thanks in advance!

[Phil]

Fairly straight forward !!!!. You say you don't have backups ?. Do you have a copy of the exchsrvrmdbdatapriv.edb and pub.edb and also exchsrvrdsadatadir.edb ? If so exchange is simple to get back. If not you have no chance unless you have a backup.

Copy those 2 directorys somewhere safe. Make 2 copies if needed. Uninstall Exchange then reinstall setup /r ( recovery ). It is vital that you have all the following info exactly correct or you will keep reinstalling till right.
Organisation and site name and also service account username and password.

Once reinstalled it will go into optimiser. Cancel that. ( hopefully you have reinstalled as was so directory structure the same ).

Now copy the contents of your backup copy of dsadata into the new dsadata directory. Start the system attendant service followed by the directory.
Hopefully all being well will start the directory. If not delete the contents and just copy dir.edb across and try again.
Once directory up copy accross the priv and pub edb files into the mdbdata directory. Go to a dos prompt. Go into the exchsrvrin dir and run isinteg -patch. This may fail and ask to start the service before running. If so just start the service stop the service patch then start the service.
Now you need to bring upto previous service pack level. Then optimise.
If previous fails because of SP level. Set all exchange services disbled then install SP ( it will bitch about the services but the files will copy across ok ).
Once reinstalled all will be as was as the directory keeps all the config and the priv and pub hold all the mail.

If you get stuck or find the above a bit scary then get in touch and I'll see what I can do.

Phil.

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Michael at 9/19/00 1:34:33 PM


Greetings,

Last Thursday the hard drive with our exchange server failed. (We have three HD on this server, the second helf the Exchange server).

I cannot uninstall the Exchange Server in order to reinstall it.

(I dont have a back-up)

We have Small Business Server 4.5, NT 4 SP 6a, Exchange Server 5.5 (part of SBS 4.5).

We have only one physical server at this time, and use a dial up connection.


If I could reinstall Exchanege I think that would resolve most of my problems.

I am sorry for presenting such a newbie question.

I have done some search of the KB, but could not find anything related to being unable to reinstall the Exchange Server.

Thanks in advance!